Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/226

Rh says they're really nice people, these new Pigs of yours. We could get up a little dance."

"Oh!" said Jane, new vistas opening before her.

"May I implore the honour of the first dance?"

"All right," said Jane, There was certainly no reason for saying, "No, thank you."

And that night she and Lucilla talked long and earnestly of the lovely possibilities of rose-coloured Chinese silk and chiffon of all the shades of the fairy rainbow—the shades that you can never match in the shops.

It was the day before the one fixed for the arrival of the Thorntons and Mr. Tombs. The rooms were ready, the armchairs looked beautiful, and Jane was enjoying a well-earned rest in the hammock that hung from the apple-tree on the remotest of all the lawns, when she saw through the bushes the uncompromising black-and-white livery of Forbes approaching like a large, respectable magpie.

"Whatever is it now?" Jane wondered. She was deep in "Uncle Silas" and wished for invisibility,

Forbes very properly waited till she was quite close to her young mistress before announcing that there was "a lady to see her."

"Tell Miss Craye," said Jane. "I can't see anyone."

Forbes said that Miss Craye was out, she believed, ma'am.

"Oh, all right." Jane plunged angrily out of the hammock. "I'll come. I suppose you've put her in the drawing-room? Who is it? Did she give her name?"

"Yes, ma'am; its Mrs. Rochester," said Forbes, and something faintly resembling a smile seemed to play near her mouth.

Mrs. Rochester! And Lucilla not in! And Forbes, the gravest of the grave, almost smiling! This was a little bit too much. Once was all right, and not a bad joke—but twice! And with John Rochester working in the house, too! Lucilla ought to know better. Jane quickened her pace to a run. She had shaken Lucilla last time. This time. . ."

She ran on, arrived in the hall flushed and dishevelled,